His friend, LaToya Dean, spent the night in a chair propped up inside his tent, but got no sleep.

“I can’t sleep in a chair,” she said.

But she has no plans to head to a homeless shelter.

“I tried a shelter,” she said. “It was gross. Had to be up real early in the morning. To get help, they want you to get a job.”

Demetrius Lewis looks over his flooded out tent at the homeless encampment where he lives in front of the Broward County Main Library in Fort Lauderdale, Sunday, May 20, 2018. (Joe Cavaretta / Sun Sentinel)

Lewis, 32, says he started living on the streets eight months ago when the rent on his efficiency went from $500 to $900 a month.

Rain or no rain, Lewis says he has no plans to move to a shelter.

“What shelter they got for us?” he said. “They all full. They don’t care about us. We’re our own community. This is what we built for ourselves. And they want to take it away. We call it home.”

A line formed near the street when Fort Lauderdale resident Bonnie Gresham drove up in a car loaded with sandwiches and meal platters.

“We do this as a family,” Gresham said as her brother and niece helped hand out meals through the car window.

When the last one in line was served, Gresham drove around to the south side of the library, where more homeless people had gathered to get out of the rain.

With a toot of the horn and a wave from the window, Gresham let them know food had arrived.